Lessons in Love & Devotion: If Lost, Return To
by drcalvin
Summary: #2 in the series. When Yosaku and Johnny met The Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro, their lives changed forever. Now they hang around with 'big bro', try to hunt bounties, earn money, find booze and maybe get into Zoro's pants. But what happens when Zoro walks off and abandons them? Was their friendship that fragile? Stories about three crazy bounty hunters and two years of adventures.
1. If Lost, Please Return To

**Lessons in Love and Devotion #2: If Lost, Please Return To...**

Warnings: The entire series contains bad language and will end up with a male/male/male sexual pairing. In this part, there's only lots of cussing.  
Timeline: Takes place before One Piece. Draws heavily from the anime filler episode #135, which is a flashback to how Zoro met Johnny and Yosaku.

Follows the fic "Stalking the Hunter". Every piece of this series is a complete story in itself, though they build on each other.

Thanks to loveandallthat for beta!

* * *

"He's gone." Johnny stared out at the empty, Pirate Hunter-less slope leading up to their camp for what felt like the eightieth time today. "The asshole just took off!"

"C'mon, partner, we don't really know that." Yosaku patted him on the back and tried to hide his own disappointment. "Maybe he, uh, perhaps... Look, it's a (kinda) big forest, he could've gotten lost."

The forest in question wasn't so much a forest, as several separate groves of trees spread out over a series of low hills and meadows. Climbing any hill, you could see a far distance. Even if Zoro's hair was green, it shouldn't have been able for him to disappear so completely in this landscape.

"Lost? LOST? How the hell would you get lost in a forest consisting of three trees and two rocks? Accept it, man, he's dumped us!" Johnny could almost feel his temper fraying. Dammit, he knew he shouldn't take it out on poor Yosaku, who'd done nothing but kept the fire going and tried to cheer him up while they sat around on a windy hill for days, waiting for the oh-so-high-and-mighty asshole of a "Pirate Hunter". The problem was that once Johnny's temper got going, his good sense tended to take a vacation and the one he really wanted to scream at, wasn't there. "I don't care if he's got the ass of a god and the sword skills of a demon, if he can't even bother to say goodbye before he takes off, he can fuck off and go to hell. You hear me, Roronoa?" he continued over Yosaku's protests. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he turned towards the offensively calm hills. "You can just _go screw yourself!_"

"Hey, calm down! What if he hears you?"

"Hah, right! We've been waiting around for ages! The food is running out and there's no booze; hah, you noticed how he made sure to drink us almost dry before he ran away? He's obviously way too much of a selfish ass to bother saying goodbye so why don't we just take his crappy crap," he gave Zoro's abandoned pack a hard kick, "and throw it into a river before we go and get drunk because I can't deal with this kind of shit sober!" Kicking the pack had felt great, so Johnny did it again for good measure. He felt something give beneath his foot and viciously hoped that it was a framed photo of Roronoa's mom or girlfriend, because this was just not fair! He thought they'd been friends!

"Fine, let's go. But I think we should remove the money first," Yosaku muttered. "There ought to be a load left from the last bounty we caught together."

"Oh, get off it you idiot!" Johnny just about managed to reign in his wish to punch something (or actually some_one_, who unfortunately wasn't here at the moment) and instead underlined every word with a hard poke on Yosaku's chest. "HE fought that guy, just like he's been fighting all the guys, HE brought in the bounty and we just tagged on! Again! I bet that's why he left, because we're useless! But he could at least have said goodbye!"

"Well, I think we did a good job with the henchmen when they tried to set fire to..."

"So what! The fucker can probably breathe fire and cut steel, he's just too fancy to show us measly peons his true skills. Fuck this!" Before the logical bits of his brain managed to override his anger, Johnny had pulled his sword and cleaved most of Roronoa's backpack in two. Seeing the innocent bag split by his sword, feeling sour fear grow in his stomach (shitshitshit, the man was insanely strong, what had he done?), he could only fight it off with even more rage. Ignoring Yosaku's flailing, he kicked the bag, slashing angrily at it.

"Johnny, Johnny, dude! Get a grip!" Finally, Yosaku got around him and locked his arms, keeping way out of range of the sword.

"I don't want to!"

"Okay, fine, it's your fool neck! But think of this –" He shook Johnny once, for extra emphasis. "What if you cut the damn _money_?"

That was actually a fair point. Hand still shaking with anger, Johnny lowered his sword. They stood panting together for a few moments, before Yosaku dared to give him an awkward hug.

"Course it bloody hurts, man," his partner said. "You think I'm not feeling all used up, getting dumped by this guy? I admired him too! I thought... Call me an idiot, but I thought we were really becoming pals." He leaned his weight against Johnny's back, and grasped his hand, giving it a hard squeeze. "But we've got each other, don't we? Right, partner?"

Swallowing a few times, Johnny squeezed back. Sometimes, he was a bit of an idiot. More than a bit. "'Course we do. And that's... Shit, partner, I'm sorry for flipping out like that."

Giving an easy chuckle, Yosaku waved away his apology. "Ey, 's okay. Only means I get to play the sensible one today!"

"You're doing a great job," he said, turning around and daring a rare daylight hug. Yosaku smelled of comfort, of home. His silly, reliable partner whom he'd fought besides so many time. Who'd never in a million years walk away without even bothering to lie about having somewhere more important to be.

"Let's grab the money and get off this hill," Yosaku suggested, and Johnny found himself nodding, his anger all spent and only empty regret left. They'd wasted too many days already, waiting for a guy who obviously thought he was too good for them.

Clothes and bills spilled out when Yosaku poked the bag. While they both tried to be discreet in the beginning (hah, as if Roronoa wouldn't notice the itty-bitty cut through half his shirts), they soon forgot all about being careful. Curiosity aroused, they began wildly rooting through the bag.

"Man, these clothes, aren't they like all stuff we picked for him?"

"Not the stomach warmers," Johnny pointed out and hefted two floppy green things. "Who under the age of eighty wears this kind of crap anyway?"

"Obviously, people who lack all taste, otherwise why would he diss our amazing company?" Yosaku's sniff of faux-snobbism was so well executed that Johnny found his dark mood slowly begin to dissipate. "Huh, he left his sword polishing stuff too..."

"Tsk, no wonder he keeps breaking the poor things."

"That poor lovely Meitô."

Johnny sighed in agreement, recalling the beautiful sword he'd been allowed to admire up close once. One admirable object reminded him of a few others, and his next sigh was decidedly wistful.

"You're thinking about his beautiful ass, aren't you?" Yosaku asked, proving that becoming an old married couple didn't always have to involve an old priest babbling at you.

"Hmm, right now it was his beautiful cock, actually, but close enough."

"Oh yeah, that was lovely too. Especially with that –"

"– hair, yes I know, have you ever seen a natural –"

"–greenhead before? Nope, but I wouldn't getting one more look!"

"It's almost a shame he didn't have a bit of fuzz on his chest," Johnny mused, imagining how it might've been (oh, if only) he could have dragged his fingers through some sparse green locks on Zoro's chest. Feel the tickle of hair against his cheek as he kissed Zoro's nipples, tug at it while the other swordsman moaned and writhed beneath him... If only.

"Oh, I don't know," Yosaku said, "we got a lovely view this way." They contemplated their memories of the view. Lovely indeed. And exhibited with a pleasant regularity too.

"'S a shame," Johnny sighed, "body like that, awesome swordsman moves, and then it turns out he's a frigid jerk."

"I still say he might've been interested. Couldn't have hurt to ask at least!"

"Hah! Oh yes it could! Don't you remember when you tried to hit on Asghol the Bomber?"

"That was a completely different situation," Yosaku mumbled, turning his focus back on the pack. "Completely!"

True, Yosaku's flirting with the handsome pirate had at least partly been a ploy so that the bastard didn't figure out that they were trying to sneak into his stronghold and pour water on his bombs. But Johnny knew perfectly well that his partner wouldn't offer as much as a quickie to a pirate of average hideousness. Unfortunately, not only was Ashgol a pirate and bomb-builder, he was also one of those big, masculine men that quaked in his heavy, skull-cracking boots if he suspected that another guy was checking out his junk.

"You mean because Roronoa wouldn't just clock you and panic so badly that he blew himself up with his own bomb," easiest damn bounty they'd ever brought in [1]. "He'd just put on his headband, look all crazy like he does –"

"Y'know, I swear I get a boner every time he pulls that face, damn distracting when we're fighting."

"– _look all crazy_ and then cut your stupid head off? Is that what you want, huh?"

Perhaps the stress was getting to him, because Johnny felt his voice almost crack at the last word. Silently, Yosaku grabbed his shoulder, giving it a hard shake.

It was okay. They hadn't messed up, had kept their drooling hidden. And the fearsome Pirate Hunter was gone, probably never to be seen by the likes of them again.

Finally reaching the money, they counted out the sum (six thousand, what kind of person just left that behind?) and snooped through a few newspaper articles hidden among the otherwise boring and unremarkable content of the back. The articles weren't even very exciting – tabloid reports about Shichibukai-sightings a few islands away, a local piece about a dojo hosting a sword tournament for the kiddies and two ads from swordsmiths 'of skill and renown'. Beneath them, a pack of bounty posters and a list of Marine bases friendly to freelance bounty-hunters that Yosaku had scribbled down for him.

"...is it just me, or does he have no life at all?"

Johnny nodded. Heck, his own backpack wasn't exactly a thrilling cornucopia, but he carried had some personal items. Souvenirs, a gift from Yosaku, lube (disguised as medical ointment), flyers to favorite inns, handcuffs (to 'subdue struggling pirates' ahem-hem) and a picture of his mom. And, now that he thought about it, probably a half-rotten sandwich. Dammit, why didn't he remember that yesterday, when dinner had been grilled squirrel?

"This is just sad," Johnny summarized the sight. "Let's pack up and get out of here."

Now that they'd decided, it took less than an hour to pack up and clean after themselves. Most of the time went to stuffing Roronoa's clothes (the not cut apart ones) into their own bags. There was no use wasting perfectly fine clothes just because the owner was a rude, ungrateful ass. (But what an ass – no, bad Johnny, down boy!)

Leaving the windy hill was a relief. Even if Yosaku dragged his feet suspiciously much and Johnny found himself having to re-tie his shoes thrice, it was a _total relief_ to leave.

Eventually, they reached the place where the path turned into a real, if narrow, road. According to their map, they only needed to follow it until it crossed the highway to Sand Town, which was their first goal. From there, they could easily grab a ship to a more interesting place. Yosaku was already talking about sailing down south for a bit of warmth. There were bound to be good bounties in the area too.

Much to their surprise, they could hear raised voices from up ahead. Not the usual threatening 'Yarrr, we're highwaymen because we failed to become pirates' bluster, but what sounded like a rather intense argument. They upped their pace, curiosity pulling them closer, and soon the yelling cleared into distinct voices.

"I keep telling you, there are _no mountains_ around here! Do you understand me? NO! MOUNTAINS! NONE!"

"And I keep telling you, you senile old goat, that I left my friends on the other side of the mountain! I need to get back but you keep giving me all kinds of weird directions! Last time I ended up by the sea –"

"Gods above! We're _two days_ away from the sea!"

"Then how the hell did I end up on a beach yesterday, huh?"

"I don't bloody know, you– you idiotic, mossbrained, swordsucking MORON!"

Without a word between them, both Johnny and Yosaku broke into a sprint as they heard that. Feet pounding against the road, the cleared the hill and saw a view that was almost as interesting as it was unexpected.

A tiny, shriveled old man (but, one had to admit, still in possession of a pair of fine lungs) was waving his stick around and appeared to be yelling himself towards a heart-attack.

And who was he yelling at, if none other than the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro. Even from the back, they could tell he was spitting mad and about two seconds from pulling out his swords to create some old-man kebob. He was still in the same shirt he'd worn when he walked off to gather firewood, though he had somehow lost his sandals, and he was right now pulling at his (okay, yes, somewhat moss-like) green hair while releasing a frustrated groan.

"Heeyyyyy! Big bro!" Yosaku hollered, beaming like the sun. "Where the hell have you been?"

Whirling around, Zoro stared up at them, and Johnny almost stumbled in surprise. The guy looked terrible, at least compared to his usual stunning attractiveness. Dirty, with dark rings beneath his eyes, and the kind of chapped lips and sharp face you got when you hadn't eaten for days (and Johnny thanked his lucky star that he was becoming a good enough bounty-hunter for that to only be a vague memory).

"Johnny! Yosaku!"

Ouch. But seriously, ouch! Because despite looking ragged and tired, Zoro broke into a radiant smile when he saw them, spreading his in greeting. Johnny found himself slowing down as a host of conflicting emotions caught up with him, among them a rapidly increasing guilt. Yosaku, simple creature that he was, had no such concerns. He threw himself onto the other swordsman, babbling happily while giving him a heartfelt hug.

"So you're his handlers, huh?" the old man groused. "About time you showed up."

Handlers? O-kay, don't even go there, brain. "Has he been here long?" Johnny said, grateful that he didn't have to confront the mixture of anger/joy/guilt/disappointment that would have made a hug incredibly awkward just now.

"Pfah!" Spitting at the road, the old man poked at Zoro's back with his stick. Since he was still caught by Yosaku's arms, Zoro only swatted feebly at the offending tip. "This big lug has been coming back and bothering me for days! He keeps talking about mountains, and beaches, which is just ridiculous! And he _never listens to my directions!_"

"That's because your directions are shit!" Zoro growled and turned to them, though he left his arm around Yosaku's shoulders. He might or might not have been leaning most of his weight at the other bounty-hunter too; not that Yosaku minded in the least, judging by his gigantic grin.

"Where did you hide away from him anyway?"

"Uhm, up the road." Johnny pointed out the camp site marked on their map. "We've been waiting for four days..."

The color in the old man's face increased alarmingly, nearing purple, when he whacked Zoro on the head with his stick. "You've been running around the landscape for _four days_ and you couldn't find your way back to sodding RABBIT HILL?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoooaa, let's calm down here!" Yosaku said, pulling Zoro away while Johnny grabbed the offending walking-stick before anyone mistakenly poked a sword and lost a limb or something unpleasant like that.

"I don't give a shit about any rabbits, you crazy old fool," Zoro said, manfully ignoring the lump already growing on his head. He shook his head, then winced and sagged just a little against Yosaku. "Screw this, let's get out of here! Or I'll chop down to that goddamned signpost."

And you too, you old goat, Johnny mentally filled in. Leaving sounded like an excellent idea.

Yosaku must've agreed, because he was already pulling Zoro down towards the main road. So Johnny hurried to sneak gramps a few coins for his troubles, because it was never good to have old men cursing your name, and ran off after his friends.

"Seriously, bro," Yosaku began once they'd gotten safely away, "you didn't actually spend all this time being lost in the woods?"

Pulling away, Zoro fiddled with the hilts of his swords and refused to look either of them in the face. "Of course not! It's not my fault that half-blind old goat sent me in the wrong direction, is it? I knew where I was going. Kinda. He's the one who kept showing me the wrong road!"

"But how did you even get down–"

Johnny tactfully elbowed his partner in the side. Even hungry and seemingly two steps away from falling over with exhaustion, Zoro could still put out some mighty fine don't-fuck-with-me vibes.

"Maybe next time, we should mark our camp more clearly on the map?" he suggested. "Although we need to buy you a map of your own first..."

Zoro gave him a tired smile. "Sure, good idea. We can pick one up when I've buy a new backpack."

"Oh. Yes, about that... Yours kinda had a bit of an accident..."

"No problems," Zoro shrugged off his awkward semi-apology. "I've got a really bad luck with backpacks. Keep forgetting where I put them or they get stolen while I'm out hunting or something. One time, someone took off with my entire camp, didn't even leave the firewood behind. Or the fire."

Johnny and Yosaku exchanged a _look_. "You don't say?"

"It's only crap anyway; I keep my valuables with me all the time." Zoro patted his swords.

Johnny tried to understand how your brain was put together when six thousand bucks weren't valuables.

"Bit shame about the money, though," Zoro continued, proving that he wasn't a complete freak. "It would've been nice to eat without having to hunt someone, but eh – with three of us, we can pick up another bounty in a few days if we hurry. Should last us at least for a few dinners."

Johnny revised his earlier opinion.

"Swear, I could _murder_ for a bit of meat right now."

Yes, that bit Johnny didn't doubt. It thus gave him no pangs of consciousness at all to spin a tiny white lie; about how they'd become worried about Zoro but felt that three bags were too much to carry, and split his stuff between their own packs. Oh, and by the by, they still had some trail-cakes and dried meat if Zoro wanted to have a snack right now?

He did.

Much later, when they'd reached an inn (where Zoro had decimated half the pantry and the entire stock of booze before he fell asleep at the table and they had to carry him up to their shared room) Yosaku nudged him while they were preparing their own beds.

"Hey, partner?"

"Yeah?"

To his credit, Yosaku never even breathed the words 'I told you so'. Instead, he beamed at the sleeping Zoro and adjust the blanket over him.

"We're his _keepers_. It's almost official now!"

Johnny tried to keep his own smile away. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. And I just listened to big bro explain how you pass Cap Roger when you sail to Disco Town from here, which is so impossible it's not even funny."

"So? Fighting with three swords in the mouth should look stupid too," Yosaku said, only mouthing the 'stupid' part. "That hasn't stopped him from turning it into the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"You mean it's some kind of gift? Doing stupid shit in a cool way, but being unable to actually manage totally normal stuff?" There might be a grain of truth in that, actually.

"Gift, curse, freak of nature – who cares? He's ours now, so I say we keep him!"

"I'm not certain it'll be that simple," Johnny whispered, stroking a hand over the unwashed green hair (first priority tomorrow: dump him in a tub) while recalling Zoro's intensity whenever he talked about finding Hawk-Eyes Mihawk. "But I guess we could look after him until further notice... Just, to keep him from harassing any more poor old men and signposts."

* * *

[1] And yet, Johnny had woken up from more than one nightmare where Ashgol panicked only a little less, and managed to make reality of his threat to have Yosaku eat one of the bombs. After this event, they'd implemented a strict no-flirting-with-pirates rule.

* * *

Feedback much welcomed!

Next chapter will be uploaded pretty soon, hopefully within a week :)


	2. Unexpected SideEffects

**Lessons in Love and Devotion #3: Unexpected Side-Effects**

Warnings: The entire series contains bad language and will end up with a male/male/male sexual pairing. In this part, there's only lots of cussing and a bit of hurt/comfort stuff.  
Timeline: Takes place before One Piece, during the years Zoro spent as a bounty hunter with Johnny and Yosaku.

Follows the fic "If Lost, Please Return To..." Every piece of this series is a complete story in itself, though they build on each other.

Thanks to loveandallthat for beta!

* * *

"Can you still move your toes?" Yosaku's voice was wobbling around in the higher registers and sweat was dripping down from his nose down onto Johnny. Though he did try to control the tear thing, so Johnny didn't point out what a silly wuss he was being.

"I'm fine," he said, wriggling all his toes and fingers, which Yosaku of course couldn't properly see, since three sets of toes-and-fingers were hidden beneath the rocks trapping him. "It's okay, just a bit of stone," he continued and tried to raise his head as much as said stone allowed. Whoa, the world spun even quicker when he did that!

"It's _half a mountain_!" Yosaku wailed. "It's completely crushed that bandit bastard! And I can't get you out!"

"Nah, partner, you'll get me out, no problems! I trust you, man!"

That made Yosaku wail even louder, which worsened Johnny's headache so he closed his eyes for a moment. Just for a little time, he could take a nap and then... Before he had time to properly relax (which was surprisingly easy to do, considering how all of him except his head and left arm was buried beneath a heap of rocks) Yosaku was shaking him awake again.

All that shaking was getting uncomfortable.

"We've got some water? Or tea?" Johnny asked, mostly to get Yosaku to stop yanking at him. "Getting a bit chilly..."

"Tea! Yes, tea!" Yosaku ran off.

He'd break his silly neck if he kept on like this. Johnny really needed to get out from under these rocks before something happened to his poor idiot partner. His lucky being what it was, Yosaku returned with the lukewarm leftovers of their breakfast tea just as Johnny was falling into comfortable slumber.

Even a bit dizzy as he was, Johnny thought he could detect more than a hint of their emergency booze in the tea as well. Hmm, why the hell not.

After he'd given him a drink, Yosaku made another valiant attempt at pushing aside the rocks. Using his sword as a lever, he did manage to shift the heap a bit backwards. Unfortunately, since the heap trapping Johnny consisted of several smaller stones with a man-sized boulder on top... and the entire thing held up by the even larger heap of stones that rested with great finality againt the mountain, it was hard to move it any way that didn't involve squashing Johnny's head. Much like he suspected that the bandit they'd been tracking had gotten squished beneath the even bigger piece of mountain that had ended his scream of _Oh shiiiiii–_ with a suspiciously splat-like sound. They probably wouldn't get a bounty for him, even if they did manage to dig out his remains. Bummer.

Once Yosaku gave up on trying to move the boulder, his sword had gained a sizeable dent. Johnny's forehead also sported a new bruise from where a few loose stone had hit him during Yosaku's efforts. Gray-faced and breathing like a beached whale, his partner slipped down in a huddle beside him, no longer even trying to hold back his tears.

"You gotta find... 'nother guy," Johnny managed. He still didn't really hurt anywhere, except for the bump on his forehead, but he had to admit that it was getting colder. His thoughts felt heavy too, as if they were buried in a rockslide as well, but hearing Yosaku's misery stopped him from taking a nap. Hell, they couldn't just give up, could they?

"I can't leave you behind!"

"'S not leaving. You'll come back, yeah?" Hmm, breathing was definitely a bit more work than usual. Johnny stared up at the clear sky and wondered if it would really be that bad to just close his eyes and stop feeling cold. He wished he still had his sunglasses to protect from the glare of the sun. Unfortunately, they were also crushed beneath the rocks somewhere. A shame, such a snazzy pair too.

And then there was Yosaku. He couldn't... He had to wait for him, right? "I'm not going anywhere," he said, feeling a moment of pride for how normal he managed to sound.

Some more tears and another attempt to move the rock from Yosaku, before he kissed him farewell (no, Johnny sternly told himself, he kissed him _so-long_ because he was coming back soon. And he was going to wait for his partner right here, until Yosaku did) and started to climb down towards the valley.

Then he was gone.

The sky was truly remarkably blue, not a cloud to mar the endless sea above. It looked comforting. Though Johnny would really have liked to go out with Yosaku's face (preferably lined, gray and gone hideous with peaceful age) leaning over him, the blue wasn't too bad either. He should lose his shades a bit more often, perhaps.

He tried to give a content sigh, but the pressure on his chest stopped him.

Johnny closed his eyes. Just a moment. One little nap.

"Hey, you. Hey!"

Someone was squeaking in his ear. He managed to turn around to glare at the little girl disturbing his rest.

"What do you want?"

"For one, _not_ seeing your ugly mug whenever I turn around. For at least another thirty years, preferably," the girl said, using language highly inappropriate for a brat her age. Whatever her age was. He thought she had dark hair, but when he blinked it looked as if she was translucent, or maybe white-haired. Confusing.

"Well, go away then," he said, faintly noticing that speaking seemed to have gotten easier these last moments. And here silly Yosaku was making such a fuss about him, hah.

"I can't," the girl said and made a great production of rolling her eyes. "He's worrying about you two idiots so much, but does he manage to stick around to take proper care of you? No, of _course_ not, so guess who has to spring in!"

Johnny laughed, because the faces the girl pulled where really quite entertaining. "You?" he suggested, and was rewarded by her blowing a raspberry at him.

"You'd better hope he won't try to use my sword... his sword. Anyway! It is highly disrespectful to use a sword in the way your idiot partner attempted, whether they are named blades or not. No, you watch it, if he tries anything like that, I'll see to it that he slips and pokes you with it."

"Who?"

"Who do you think? You've ogled us often enough that you should know."

"Hey, hang on a moment." Johnny managed to rise up on his elbow and poked the girl on the chest. "I do not ogle little girls, got it? Big girls, full-grown men and all variations on that theme, sure, but no shrimps your age!"

"Shrimp!"

"Dear, I think we need to ask our friend to lie down again," a calmer voice said from behind him. Johnny tried to turn around, but before he could there was a cool hand on his shoulder, forcing back him down.

Strange. As he lay down, cold pressure closed in around his body again. He felt himself grow heavy, his breath rasping through his lungs.

"I know it's less comfortable, Mister Johnny, but it is for your own good." The woman who leaned over him this time was dressed all in white, her hair and eyes gleaming silver. She was very elegant, he thought, even as dizziness made his vision cloudy. "It is not healthy for you to move too far away from your body, even if it might temporarily make you feel better."

"Bwuh? Where d'yall come from?"

"That way," the first girl said and pointed in the direction of the boulder. Actually, now that he looked closer, he was fairly sure that she was pointing through the boulder. As in, with her actual hand inside stone.

There was something a bit odd about this, but Johnny couldn't _quite_ put his finger on what.

"We are only here in spirit," the second woman said, perhaps noticing his confusion, "though my physical self is quickly coming closer."

"Wha?"

"Wadô, is it just me, or is he losing it a bit too much?"

"Indeed," the silvery woman said. "I am not an expert on the limits of the human body, but it seems as if the flow of life in him is interrupted. Interesting. I usually only see this reaction when most of it has already been spilled on the ground."

Johnny swallowed. He wasn't sure what they were talking about, but it didn't sound too nice. "Uhh, Wadô, maybe you could try moving some rocks?"

"Ex_cuse_ me, that would be Wadô Ichimonji to you," the dark-haired girl said and straightened her pale kimono. Fussy little shrimp. "Now then. If you're half the man you brag about being, you'd better not give up so easily. All the important bits are still inside." She waved a hand through the stone. "See, nothing crushed, no broken neck or anything!"

It almost felt as if a cold draft went through him when she did that, though his next breath came a tiny bit easier afterward. He wanted to thank her, but his lungs seemed to take this momentary relief as permission to cramp and the coughing kind of stopped him. It fucking hurt too, besides being rude.

"Oh dear, this doesn't sound good at all." The white woman laid a hand on his forehead and Johnny felt a different kind of cold run through him. For a moment, the world – blue sky, brown rocks, the smell of earth and mountains – melted away. It seemed as if he was dangling over a vast chasm, filled with rushing water that was waiting, no, that was reaching for him, trying to swallow him into its endless stream.

"Shh," the woman said, her presence a moon-like blade in the darkness, "just breathe."

And the girl spoke too: a word shorter, much more fundamental than a simple 'no', yet heavier than all the rocks resting on him. To Johnny's fuzzy mind, it was like hearing not just the word, but the act, the entire concept of _No_ given name-shape-truth and spoken into the world.

This was getting very odd indeed.

While he could still feel the pull of the cold water, the world took shape around him again; rocks (heavy) and sky (empty), body locked down – so why was he still so afraid to fall?

A few pebbles slid down around him and he realized that his hearing had gone weird too, doubling just like the feel of his body. Could you even get dizzy ears? But he'd swear he could hear both someone sliding on rocks (climbing down a mountain?) and the river's song. Even in this state, he was fairly certain it wasn't Yosaku who had already come back. He knew his partner's gait and it had never sounded so heavy, as if the walker carried a burden so large that each of his steps created echoes throughout the world.

"He's here now," the two – one? – women said, white and black and silver swirling in front of his eyes, until all he could see was an unsettling sharp smile. "Now remember: admiration is fine, but the ogling is getting very distracting. Please try to rein it in!"

Before Johnny could ask what the hell that was all about, she dissolved like mist in sunlight. He found himself staring dumbly at the heap of rocks, neck bent at an uncomfortable angle. Her voice, however, remained behind, whispering in his ears

(Or was it the river? Or had she always been that rushing sound? He couldn't remember any more.)

"Please take better care in the future, Johnny the Bounty Hunter," her (their?) voice continued. "The role you have to play might be small and one that the stories will forget, but it remains necessary."

A black boot descended before his eyes, and someone was calling for him from far, far away. But the woman's voice had captured him, so he closed his eyes and listened.

"For the service I have done you today, would you do one for me?" she asked. Hunger in her voice, he thought, and remembered the scrape of steel against steel.

"Anything," he managed, further words caught by the relentless weight on his lungs.

"Pull him out of his shell for me. Make him listen to something beyond the call of battle again," she whispered, and he shivered as the words seeped inside his brain and settled there, cold and hard. "Or he shall never manage to hear the one who is to be king, and then all our effort has been pointless."

"Who... Why?"

"Why? Because our name must ring throughout the world," she said. Despite the fact that her voice was a fading whisper – the soft sound of a cut through flesh, the last tone in the song of the sword – there was a thrum of power in it, increasing with every word."Our fame must ring from mountain to mountain, over all the seas... Only when our name echoes through Heaven and Hell, can we lay our tired souls to rest! Johnny, do you hear and understand me?"

She was gone, not there, but he kept seeing her smile in front of him and it was so _hungry_.

"...the hell! Johnny! Johnny, can you hear me?"

"Yes!" he gasped, eyes flying open and free arm flailing uselessly. "Yes, I get it, I swear!"

"Oh shit, don't – just lie still!" Strong (warm) hands pressed down on his arm, and the blur of green and brown turned into the familiar face of Roronoa Zoro. Less familiar was the worried frown on him, but when Johnny blinked and managed a mouthed 'Bro?' the other swordsman's eyes cleared.

"Don't slip away again," he ordered and stood up, the white Meitô on his hip rattling against the other swords. In Johnny's confused brain, it called up the image of exaggaratedly rolling silver eyes.

_Do you swear?_ they whispered, and he nodded. Half-choked and crushed he might be, but Johnny knew that whatever oath he'd just sworn, it was one he'd give his soul to keep.

With a curse, a grunt and a show of arm-strength that would have impressed Johnny more if he wasn't close to passing out, Zoro lifted the largest boulder off him. Pebbles, stones and rocks up to the size of a baby's skull slid out and bounced around Johnny's head, some bouncing off it... but he could finally breathe again.

He laughed, and coughed, and oh fuck but _everything_ hurt.

(At least he wasn't drowning in the sky any more.)

When Yosaku came running back, two shepherds following him at a quick pace, they were surprised to find a pot of tea bubbling on a small fire. They were even more shocked to see Zoro, reading out loud from a sword catalogue to the banged-up Johnny, who was lying with his head on his lap.

"Me? Just happened to come this way. And he's the one who wanted to hear about swords," Zoro said in answer to Yosaku's stunned questions. "Think he's still a bit loopy, keeps babbling about not ogling girls in white..." He shrugged. "Tried to keep him awake."

Yosaku stared down at him. Johnny gave him a happy little wave and a see-I-told-you-so smirk. Hadn't he promised he'd still be around when his partner got back? And who was right here, just like agreed, huh?

The next moment, Zoro had a lapful of two bounty hunters, one of which was crying hysterically all over his shirt. He didn't seem to mind in the least.

* * *

If you enjoyed this fic, please let me know by leaving a review. I have several more parts planned, but I'd love to hear what people like/don't like.

The next part will be posted as in a week or so, I hope :)


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